4/26/2013

Andrew Breitbart would tell anyone who would listen, at great length, about the Pigford fraud. Pigford was a class action lawsuit brought by black people who claimed to be farmers, and said the Agriculture Department had discriminated against them in making loan decisions. A court case had identified 91 potential claimants — but the Obama administration decided to engage in a more massive payout: $50,000 to virtually anybody who claimed that they had “attempted to farm” but could not because of discrimination.

Dangling $50,000 checks in front of people, while requiring almost no documentation (an affidavit from a pal backing you up was plenty good enough), predictably led to rampant fraudulent claims:

“It was the craziest thing I have ever seen,” one former high-ranking department official said. “We had applications for kids who were 4 or 5 years old. We had cases where every single member of the family applied.” The official added, “You couldn’t have designed it worse if you had tried.”

. . . .

In 16 ZIP codes in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and North Carolina, the number of successful claimants exceeded the total number of farms operated by people of any race in 1997, the year the lawsuit was filed. Those applicants received nearly $100 million.

In Maple Hill, a struggling town in southeastern North Carolina, the number of people paid was nearly four times the total number of farms. More than one in nine African-American adults there received checks. In Little Rock, Ark., a confidential list of payments shows, 10 members of one extended family collected a total of $500,000, and dozens of other successful claimants shared addresses, phone numbers or close family connections.

The scope of the problem runs into billions of dollars:

[A]n examination by The New York Times shows that it became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees. In the past five years, it has grown to encompass a second group of African-Americans as well as Hispanic, female and Native American farmers. In all, more than 90,000 people have filed claims. The total cost could top $4.4 billion.

Especially infuriating: when prosecutors were given a test case of fraud, in which the claimant admitted lying in his application, they declined to prosecute — and the reason both amuses and infuriates:

In Arkansas, prosecutors rejected a test case against a Pine Bluff police officer who had admitted lying on his claim form. Paula J. Casey, the United States attorney in Arkansas in 2000, said that singling out one individual raised questions of selective prosecution.

“The defendant could go to the jury and say: ‘Everybody else did this. Why am I standing here?’ ” she said.

There’s so much fraud, you see, that you can’t prosecute just one person. So you can’t prosecute anybody.

This is, of course, absurd logic. If it’s hard to prosecute people for reasons of proof, and you have someone who confessed, it’s not “selective prosecution” to charge that person. This reasoning, followed to its logical conclusion, would make it impossible to prosecute Internet fraud, which is certainly rampant and difficult to prosecute.

But, you see, there is a difference. The government does not aid and abet Internet fraud as a general rule. Prosecuting an Internet fraud case would not be embarrassing for the Obama administration.

Not so for a Pigford fraud case.

The article is stunning — and an incredible vindication of Andrew Breitbart:

I wish to God that Andrew Breitbart were alive to see this. He fought this fight for years, was totally right and never got credit for it.

Public criticism came primarily from conservative news outlets like Breitbart.com and from Congressional conservatives like Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, who described the program as rife with fraud. Few Republicans or Democrats supported him. Asked why, Mr. King said, “Never underestimate the fear of being called a racist.”

The Pigford fraud is not news to you folks. It was featured prominently here in several posts, many by Lee Stranahan, who worked closely with Andrew on the story. You can read the posts by searching the site for Pigford (just hit this link), but in all the coverage, one video stands out in my memory. It was published in this post. When I went to grab the embed code, it had a pitiful 891 views.

The video has to be seen to be believed. It shows someone coaching an audience on how to fill out the paperwork to get their $50,000 check. Watch the video to make your own judgment about the general attitude towards the truth in that room — both on his part, and on the part of the laughing audience. He tells people that there are four questions on the form, and that they must all be answered yes to get a check. He analogizes it to the four bases you must touch to score a run in baseball — and if all the bases aren’t touched, you go back to the dugout, meaning you don’t get a $50,000 check. He carefully explains that if they SAY they tried to farm, they DID attempt to farm, as far as the government is concerned. To call this a “wink and a nod” is being kind.

Excellent article by the New York Times. Congratulations to them, to Andrew Breitbart, and to Lee Stranahan for getting out the truth on this story.

A couple months ago I posted a comment on a thread here about how this fraud was inexplicably being widely expanded by the administration. Do you remember that happyfeet? I know that you for one commented about it after seeing my post.
As a review—
Here is the header of the large glossy postcard I received from from USDA written in both in English and Spanish:

Attention Hispanic and Women Farmers and Ranchers
If you or someone you know believe the United States Department of Agriculture has improperly denied you farm loan benefits between 1981 and 2000 because you are Hispanic or female you may be eligible to apply for compensation. Claims must be postmarked by March 25 2013 to be considered for cash payment or loan forgiveness.

As I mentioned at the time, I have never sought or received a USDA or any type of farm related loan in my life. Yet I received a postcard.

This is of a scale that it should be considered another form of stimulus. After all, we have been told that unemployment benefits are one of the best “investments” we can make. Since you don’t have to be unemployed to get your Pigford payout of $50,000, this should be better yet. That’s the great thing about being a Liberal, all this demand pumping is believed to be essential to a healthy economy. Presumably these communities are now thriving.

If you want insight into the liberal mind then you should read some of the online comments in the NYT article linked in this post. It’s a collection of “I don’t condone fraud, but discrimination is really bad and some of those people who filed truly were victims. Better to waste billions in fraud than to deny one or two deserving minority farmers.” Way to completely miss the point, liberals.

I’ve been saving for years to buy some land and put in a small orchard and vineyard. I’m at the point where if I get a great deal I could afford the land and the equipment. In five years, if I’m lucky, I’ll probably be able to swing it.

Meanwhile, I’m paying taxes to support this BS. Rather, “meanwhile, the money I’m saving up is being inflated to nothing because of the run-away printing press used to pay for this BS”.

A couple months ago I posted a comment on a thread here about how this fraud was inexplicably being widely expanded by the administration.

That’s exactly what the New York Times says, and it is that *expansion* that seems to have motivated the article.

[IOn 2010, Justice Department lawyers were on the verge of winning a lawsuit in a copycat case involving Hiispanic and women farmers] ….Instead of an army of potential claimants, the government faced just 91 plaintiffs. Those cases, the government lawyers figured, could be dispatched at limited cost.

They were wrong.

On the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling, interviews and records show, the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.

The deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections — until now undisclosed — of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination.

What is more, some protested, the template for the deal — the $50,000 payouts to black farmers — had proved a magnet for fraud.

The New York Times is still holding to the position that the original claims were justified – a federal judge had agreed. But they were saying it had become a runaway train.

I was just reading the comments on the Times’ article again, and the lefty commenters have moved on to “this pales in comparison to the fraudulent Wall Street bailouts.” Glad to know they are still getting mileage out of that fiasco!

When
A 2010 settlement with Native Americans was contentious for its own reasons. Justice Department lawyers argued that the $760 million agreement far outstripped the potential cost of a defeat in court. Agriculture officials said not that many farmers would file claims.

That prediction proved prophetic. Only $300 million in claims were filed, leaving nearly $400 million in the control of plaintiffs’ lawyers to be distributed among a handful of nonprofit organizations serving Native American farmers. Two and a half years later, the groups have yet to be chosen. It is unclear how many even exist.

Here, the fewer the victims the bigger the pile of money they (the lawyers) got to distribute)

Maybe Elizabeth Warren can start an organization that can take the money.

SF: “Now, since there are no actual victims or damages to anyone, how does someone get selected to be a victim?”

19. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/26/2013 @ 9:35

Sammy – This is all spelled out in the various articles published on the scam. All you have to do is read them.

I didn’t read much of them, but just got a general idea of what happened. I am not sure where I could find it.

The New York Times article doesn’t say. You would think from the article all these poor people came forward on their own. This is not the way this worked. People even needed to be taught by outsiders how to fill out the forms. One thing Patterico refers to mentions a class given by someone called Tom Burrell, but how did people wind up in that class?

Almost certainly, the lawyers, to collect their full fee, needed to disburse a certain amount of money. Or they needed a certain minimum number of victims to win the next case.

They DID try, their only regret being they couldn’t get more people potential voters on the take.

They weren’t interested very much in voters. Most wouldn’t even now what politicians maybe they owed it to, and this couldn”t be widely or openly advertised. It was the lawyers who needed victims, both to collect their full fee and win the next case, and the lawyers probably made reasonably big campaign contributions or other active help..

In the Indian case, where they didn’t need more victims, but only an Indian organization to take the money, and maybe kick it back, in the form of hiring them perhaps, there weren’t too many.

Congratulations to everyone who helped bring this story to light, especially Andrew Breitbart and Lee Stranahan. Part of Andrew Breitbart’s legacy is making America a better place by shining light on racism, injustice and fraud. I know his family is very proud of that legacy.

I would like various outlets that attacked, smeared and made ugly accusations of racism apologize to Lee Stranahan and Breitbart’s wife and children for their misguided efforts.

I see that Professor Jacobson noted Media Matters as being one of those outlets who titled their 2/2011 attack with, Is Breitbart Trying For “Stupidest Conspiracy Theory” Award With Pigford Allegations? So I checked EB’s twitter feed and MM site to see if there were any acknowledgements and/or nods to Breitbart, but apparently Fox News is spewing so many non-stop lies that must be refuted, there just isn’t time to honorably right a serious wrong.

Dustin – The left, especially the anti-Breitbart cheerleaders, seem oddly silent about this development today. It’s almost as if they are shocked or embarrassed, but we know they do not do embarrassment so they are probably awaiting instructions on what to write as fiercely independent thinking hive mind Journalists and bloggers.

It’s almost as if they are shocked or embarrassed, but we know they do not do embarrassment so they are probably awaiting instructions on what to write as fiercely independent thinking hive mind Journalists and bloggers.

I’m sure this is exactly the case. They need their script, and in this case, it will be tough to come up with one. I’m guessing they will just trash Breitbart with the dishonest characterization of the Sherrod issue again, while using that to fill up the space they should have used to describe the theft of $4 billion.

One of the main victims here is the actual black farmers who were screwed by the government.

In December, Andrew Breitbart published a report, “The Pigford Shakedown,” that purported to reveal the “massive fraud” and “widespread corruption” supposedly tainting a settlement intended to compensate to black farmers who had faced discrimination from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Breitbart’s report, which is intended to form the basis for a congressional investigation, is laden with distortions, questionable sourcing, and sloppy errors.

MM, who also cited “authority”,Political Scientist Abramowitz: “There’s Always Potential” For Fraud, But Some Accusations Are “Greatly Exaggerated.” Adam Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University, told The Christian Science Monitor:

I think some of the claims that conservative groups have been making about fraud are greatly exaggerated, but, sure, there’s always potential that there could be some fraudulent claims. But you have to weigh that against the injustice that was done. [The Christian Science Monitor, 12/08/10]

Dustin – Kevin Drum, internet mediocrity who writes for Mother Jones, believes it is hard to detect fraud in settlements such as these. Well, it is if you design the settlement process specifically to make it hard to detect fraud, purposely look the other way when warned of fraud occurring, overlook obvious danger signs of fraud, and avoid taking any proactive steps to prevent fraud. Other than that, yeah, fraud can be tough to detect.

Daniel Foster of NRO and wrote a lengthy piece on Pigford and support of Breitbart, has a good piece today on the Five Things We Learned About Pigford in light of the NYT piece.

A little over two years ago I did a long story on the Pigford case for the magazine, a story about how a small class-action suit with at least the vague odor of merit morphed into a sprawling con aimed at processing identity politics into cold hard cash. The case was an obsession of the late Andrew Breitbart’s – half of the few conversations I had with him were about Pigford – but besides Breitbart’s loyal followers and my handful of readers, nobody much cared.

(snip)

To their credit, the New York Times has finally caught on that this is sort of a big deal, and today ran a long, scathing, above-the-fold-piece on these Sons of Pigford​.

Well, it is if you design the settlement process specifically to make it hard to detect fraud,

No kidding. I certainly don’t hand out $50k like it’s monopoly money. Drum didn’t seem to care that the government showed zero interest in protecting the owners of that money (the American people and our kids who are left with the debt). His excuse is that the ‘injustice’ to a few people justifies a far larger injustice. Conveniently this always plays out in a way that defrauds the workers and enriches the dependent and the politicians they are loyal to.

there’s always potential that there could be some fraudulent claims.

Dana, they should have thrown a few more weasel word qualifiers in there. The fact is that setting up a system to get $50k if your friend says you thought about farming is not a reasonable way to achieve justice for the actual Pigford scandal.

laden with distortions, questionable sourcing, and sloppy errors.

This is not very specific. Calling it sloppy with questionable sourcing actually sounds desperate to me.

And this is how billions are stolen. A press that is too loyal to a political party and the concept of a huge government (that buys votes at $50k a pop).

And I suspect the media’s record is where the story would be for Breitbart if he were with us now.

Imagine the billions the AG’s have wasted in the non-pigford programs as well – its time to end all ag subsidies and turn over ag inspections and other activities to the states

Why the competing health departments – at the artisan cheese and goat milk plant I was involved with – we had weekly visits from Texas, Louisiana and other state inspectors that we sent the goat milk too and then the USDA would show up basically repeating what the states were already doing

Why? I once was slow pasturizing a batch of milk and had more inspectors taking notes than I had employees working that shift – all to makeold school products for whole foods – hilarious – they actually watched milk being slow pasturized – hours and hours – like watching grass grow…

Imagine the billions the AG’s have wasted in the non-pigford programs as well – its time to end all ag subsidies and turn over ag inspections and other activities to the states

Amen.

The entire concept of the federal government controlling this industry has been incredibly expensive and led to a less healthy country because they push junkier and carbier food (which is easier to store, leading to more stable grocery prices).

The politicians will tell us that a stable food price saves us money, but it’s a myth as the costs are enormous and hidden to be paid by our kids through enormous debt. There’s no free meal here.

But there’s very little I would leave in place if I could cut the federal government down to what I prefer.

I want to see Jay Carney sweat and have to answer questions about this. Many questions from many reporters. I also want to see under FOIA a full published list of all the requesters and recipients and dates and amounts of Pigford claims and subsequent black, native American, Hispanic and Women farmer claims. I want to see against whom and how many (any?) suits the government has initiated with respect to prosecuting fraudulent claims.

And I want to see this done up in style on SNL. Perhaps the habitual liar, the “yeah, that’s the ticket” guy can come back to guest star for that sketch.

We were slow pasturizing goat mil because it was easily digestable by endstage chemo therapy patients. Whole foods was very interested in a complete line of holistic products soft serve goat ice cream, goat milk yogurt, goat ice cream, all these were asked for by the nutritionists at MD Anderson.

I am very proud of the family the young family led by one of the hardest working Aggie engineers whorisked their family fortune to help others with daring product development

Now they can claim I was covered by the MFM, and no longer needs to be discussed. It will go back to being ignored, and this 1 article will be used to show that it was fully covered and given the consideration it deserves. Racists.

Whats the problem?
A few people get good advice and defraud the government, who cares?
If they are a minority who cares even more?
The fraud is rampant.
Everyone lies, steals and cheat anymore.
Welcome to how a society dies.

I really knew very little about Pigford. I satrt from the assumption that after about 1980 there could not have been any racial discrimination going on in the Agriculture Department, or almost any where else in America.

Corruption, and cronyism and political favorism yes, but not racial bias on anything more than a miniscule scale involving one individual acting alone here and there.

The 91 plaintiffs are from Pigford II – thiose who missed the original deadline on the class action lawsuit.

In the end, Burrell was cheating blacks, speaking at churches and charging $100 to join his organization, at a time when the applications (for blacks qua blacks) was closed for the second time.